Russia has sharply escalated drone strikes against Ukrainian Black Sea ports, killing at least three people and damaging multiple vessels, while Ukraine simultaneously deepens its own naval campaign targeting Russian shipping routes and energy infrastructure. Russian strikes hit the port of Mykolaiv — an important grain-exporting city in southern Ukraine — damaging three foreign-flagged ships and killing two Ukrainian crew members. A separate attack on Odesa, Ukraine's largest port city, claimed at least one more life. Russia's defence ministry confirmed it had carried out strikes on port installations in Odesa.

The intensified Russian attacks come as a direct counter to a sweeping Ukrainian naval drone campaign that has inflicted significant damage on Russian maritime logistics. Ukraine's armed forces announced on Friday that they had struck 12 Russian vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov — the shallow inland sea between Russia and Ukraine — bringing the month's total to 159 ships targeted over 12 days. Among those hit were cargo vessels, a tanker, and a tugboat. Ukraine has also struck the terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) on Russia's Black Sea coast, a critical export hub responsible for roughly 80 percent of Kazakhstan's oil exports, with an ExxonMobil-chartered tanker, the Nordic Zenith, reported among the vessels hit.

Ukraine's naval drone offensive, codenamed